Escape from Azkaban
by shadowkat678
Summary: Twelve years, twelve years of cold, twelve years of fear, and twelve years darkness. And now Sirius is free, and he has a score to settle... (Birthday upload, much editing, and might possibly turn into chaptered story later. Enjoy, and feel free to point out any mistakes.)


**Sirius Black: Escape from Azkaban**

**By: Shadowkat678**

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><p><em>H<em>_ope...a simple word only four letters long, a word that had been slowly drained out of him for twelve long years..._

_Joy...three small letters he never thought he'd get the chance to feel again..._

_Freedom...a word, seven letters in length, which would soon change everything..._

A large black hound now stood at the very edge of those three words, it's stormy gray eyes staring past the story high waves buffeting the cliffs down below and out to a paper-thin line of sky blue, hovering on the rapidly darkening horizon. In reality, this dog wasn't really a dog at all, but the most feared man in the entire wizard prison: The infamous madman and murderer, Sirius Black...and he was innocent, framed and thrown in prison without so much as a trial.

Black shifted uneasily. It would be full dark in less than an hour. If they hadn't realized the dingy cell he'd slipped out of was empty, then soon they would. It was only a matter of time before his escape was discovered by Azkaban's guards.

A shiver went through him at the thought of the Dementors. They took everything from you, everything but the cold, the emptiness...that was all they ever left you with. They didn't steal happiness, they stole everything...

His cracked, bloody paws shifted restlessly on the gritty pebbles, sending a few scarlet specked stones falling over the cliff edge and disappearing into the shifting gray foam below as he shivered, but the small movement hadn't been from cold. No, Sirius Black was warmer than he had been in years. It was fear, fear of what lay behind him.

He looked over his shoulder once more at the massive stone structure looming at his back, even at that moment seeming to vacuum the very life from the air around it, before turning to smell the salty sea breeze ahead of him. He could choose only one. Both choices held danger, but only one held any hope for a future.

He lifted his head and gazed back out to the sea, vast and never-ending, as the convict contemplated the last twelve years of his life on that cold gray rock, thinking of the Dementors that hovered silently outside his cell. He hated that place, but there, he was still alive. If he made the jump there would be no guarantee he could make it to safety. If he died, everything he hoped for would be lost. The only ones who would ever believe him would never get to hear the truth, and the one thing he wouldn't be known as would be the one thing he was. It was the one thing that kept him sane. The thought that, unlike the others, he was still innocent. But how much longer could he hold out?

Rain had started to fall now, and the dark clouds overhead promised another storm. This was his only chance...without another second of thought or hesitation, he jumped.

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><p>The grim like hound stirred, and slowly, Sirius eyes opened.<p>

He could feel soft, wet sand underneath him, water lapping at his legs. He was still in his dog form.

Sirius lifted his head to the glare of the sun, as his gray eyes surveyed his new surroundings.

White washed sand and crystal clear water stretched all around him, and a thick line of trees stood tall in the distance where sand melded together with dark dirt and soil. He turned his head back out to the blue water of the ocean, ignoring the insistent pounding in his skull, to where a lone dolphin had jumped high above the rolling waves. There was no sight of Azkaban, he was free, he made it, after all these years...he was finally free.

Memories rushed back to him, memories long forgotten. Memories of his friends, of happiness...it had been so long since he'd been able to remember. Fear and adrenaline rushed through him, the feeling both enthralling...and terrifying.

Slowly, Sirius tried to stand, his four feet shaking to the point of buckling on the shifting footing. Trembling, he took a step forward, paws sinking slightly in the damp beach sand as he let his weight bare down.

Suddenly he tensed, ears pricking and hackles raised at a sudden sound. But just as quickly he relaxed, looking up to see gray specked seagulls drifting lazily overhead, the occasional seabird diving down to catch a fish in its black beak before rising up again, the grey scales of its victim flashing.

It was strange how such normal sounds had become so foreign. The wind and the waves, splashes in the water...never before had he been so drawn in by such simple sounds, and so unlike the screams and pounding of rain he'd been surrounded by in Azkaban. It was wonderful.

Sirius tilted his head to the side, a wolfish look spreading across his face as a couple of the white and gray creatures landed just feet from where he stood. He wagged his tail a few times and pounced, scattering the birds into flight and sending gritty pale sand up into the air. Sirius let out a bark before bounding after them, his paws padding hard against the warm sand. The animungus barked another laugh as he rolled over, feeling every bit the dog as he looked.

In that moment, he was nothing but a stray dog, running wild with the joy of long dreamed freedom, and from that freedom came something even better...hope.

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><p>Sirius sat on the beach for the rest of the day, sea salt drying into white specks of crystal on his matted dark fur. He watched as the last rays of the setting sun reflected their light on the calming sea waves before fading into the dull gray of dusk and trotted off in search of a place to sleep. The escapee wouldn't dare try to go back to his human form, not with the chance of being found unaware and wandless at night. They were sure to have Aurors looking for him by now, that he had no doubt of.<p>

The stars were just coming out, shining pricks of white light in the vast darkness of the sky, when he curled up next to a large jagged gray bolder jutting out from the sand, warmth from the day still lingering. Sirius was hungry, tired, and thirsty, but for the first time in a long time he was happy. He was alive again.

And so, it was with a large yawn Sirius Black shut his eyes and buried his head deep in his paws, instantly drifting off to sleep.

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><p>That night he dreamed about a dog, a wolf, and a stag, pouncing and rolling over each other in the dew covered grass of a large moon-lit clearing. The large hound wrestled the buck to the ground, playfully nipping at it's antlers. He was together with his pack. His family.<p>

_'I'll never forget you prongs...you'll always be my brother...and Harry, I'll find him, I won't let you down, not again.'_

The stag stopped wrestling and went still, and hazel eyes latched onto gray. And then the stag, wolf, and dog were gone, and three men took their place.

James, Sirus, and Remus standing off by himself to the side. It was his family. Each looked just as they had at age twenty-one, untouched by the time. James with his black glasses and windswept inky-black hair and Remus with his tired blue eyes and light brown hair, peppered with gray. They stood there for what could have been hours or just mere seconds, a silent breeze blowing through the dreamscape and rustling the green summer leaves high above their heads. He knew every line of their faces, every detail.

Sirius had known them too long not to.

"Sirius." He snapped out of his thoughts, seeing his friend's familiar face gazing back at him. "You never let me down...Lily and I, we've never blame you."

Sirius lowered his eyes away. "No James, you should blame me. Prongs, if it weren't for me, if I hadn't convinced you to change your keeper-" Sirius sighed irritably and trailed off, looking up into the starry night-sky above him and remembering all the times they'd snuck out under those very same stars. Those days were gone, and Peter wasn't the only one he blamed for it.

He looked back, back into those hazel eyes, the eyes that saw so much more than anyone had ever given them credit for. "James, all you and Lily could have had...it was my fault you never got that. My fault that you...that you died." His hands trembled, voice cracked. It was his fault. He knew it was, knew all along.

"James, everything that happened to you, to all of us, it could have been stopped if it weren't for me. I should have seen it Prongs, if I had only seen it! They never would have found you or Lily or Harry...it was because of me. If I only hadn't been so stupid!" He was screaming now, crying. He was angry, angry with himself as much as he was with Peter. It was something he had known all along, one of the things that made up the worst of his nightmares. In a way, he blamed himself more than anyone else, because there was nothing he could do about it, because there was no way to fix it, because in that situation, at the time James had needed him most, he was useless, because that was something he hated more than anything.

Sirius glanced over at Remus and felt his heart ache.

The werewolf was watching them from under the shadows of the trees, an air of sadness spread out around him like mist. His blue eyes had a look in them Sirius had seen far too many times, like an old man watching the world around him out of a much younger body. Remus Lupin had always looked older than his age, his sandy brown hair specked with gray for as long as Sirius had known him. There was so much pain, so much pain he couldn't prevent. James wasn't the only one he had hurt. Remus suffered just as much as any of them, because Sirius knew that he wasn't the only one who had to deal with demons these past twelve years.

"I should have known it wasn't you..." His voice was barely more then a whisper now, but he had no doubt his friend had heard him.

Remus looked at him sadly. "James is right, it's not your fault...none of us would have known. " He laughed and shook his head. "Peter? Couldn't be. If you remember I'd thought it was you. Sirius, we were all wrong.

"No, Remus, James, it is my fault. They were right, I really am no better then my family. I should have done something, anything. I should have-Sirius trailed off, looking up into the starry night-sky above him and remembering all the times they'd snuck out under those very same stars. And then he thought. "But you're not James. Remus isn't here. You're not real..." His hands trembled. "The real James wouldn't forgive me. Remus still thinks I'm a murderer..."

"Then you don't know us as well as you think..." Sirius looked up, and met James' eyes. He knew that look. The steely determination was something he had seen on more than one occasion. They locked eyes, stormy gray to determined hazel, and before Sirius knew what was happening James' arms had wrapped themselves around him. Sirius tensed, but didn't try to break out of it. So they just stood there, two brothers, together.

It had to be a dream, but he felt James arms, felt them just as if he was really there. Nothing made sense, nothing was adding up.

His mind was swimming, and just as he felt like he would fall James pulled away and grinned, his hazel eyes dancing. "Padfoot, you talk too much."

'_James_...'

James took a step back, his hazel eyes softening. "There are always things we should have done, but what's happened has already happened so stop ruddy blaming yourself...I don't blame you." He smiled again, the same mischievous lopsided smile Sirius knew as a kid, and it hurt, hurt to see it again after so long.

Sirius just stood there. He didn't trust himself to speak anymore, so James started instead. "Sirius, I know you. You've always hated everything your family stood for. Trust me, Sirius, you couldn't be like your family if you tried. You're my brother, and nothing that happens will ever change that. I don't have much time left, but just promise me one thing. Protect him. Find Harry and protect him. That's all I'm asking..." Sirius looked between his best friends. It didn't make sense, nothing was adding up.

"James...what-" But James just stepped back beside Remus, and the dream started to fade around. Sirius sucked in a breath as the forest disappeared, and his friends forms started to slowly fade along with it.

Sirius ran forward, stumbling as his legs moved out from under him. "No! No wait! James, Remus, come back, please!" It was no use, it was too late. They were gone. Everything was gone, all but a single lingering whisper.

"Find him, promise me Padfoot…just promise that you'll find my son..." He stopped running, and a cold hand tightened around his heart. They were gone, again, and Sirius was alone...just like before

What just happened wasn't just a dream. No, it was too real for that. He'd felt the wind blowing across his face in the clearing, he'd felt James's arms wrap around him just his did around James after James' parents died, he'd felt the tears about to fall down his face just as he did the day he found him dead twelve years ago.

What just happened wasn't just a dream, not as he first though, Sirius knew that much. But what was it?

He stared out into the white.

What did it mean? Remus didn't know anything about Peter, and James...

A determination filled him as Sirius stared down at the last place he saw his friends, his brothers, his family.

_'I will, Prongs. Even if it kills me I will...'_

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><p>Sirius Black woke with a start, looking around frantically in a short moment of panic before remembering where he was. It was still dark and the moon was shining high overhead, almost full, reminding him of his werewolf friend. He wondered how he had done without the rest of the Marauders there for his monthly transformations. It must have hurt him, he knew that much. But he couldn't do anything about that either. It must have been almost as much of a hell for Remus as for himself.<p>

_'And now Remus thinks I'm a murderer...'_

With a whimper of longing for his family, he rose from beside the bolder and, head down, set off away from the dark waters of the ocean. He knew what he had to do...he had to set things right.

Harry… He needed James' and Lily's son to know what really happened that Halloween night his best friends were murdered.

Remus… He needed to make it up to an old friend, a friend worthy of the trust he instead placed on the shoulders of another, to let him know the real truth of what came between them so long ago.

Peter… He needed to commit the murder he'd been imprisoned for, the murder of the traitor who so uncaringly played his part in the murder of his own friends, his own family, the one who had caused all his pain and the pain of so many others.

Then, and only then, could he finally accept what would happened to him, whatever that may be. If he was found, if he was taken back, even if he was given the Dementor's kiss, those three things were the least he could do before he lost it all, because only then would it be worth it.

_'I promise you James, whatever it takes I'll protect him...then I'll find Wormtail, and I'll make him pay...'_

In his mind he silently prayed he wouldn't be too late.

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><p><strong>AN: For those of you who follow me, you might realize I had this up before when I had planned to make it a full length story...and you might have also noticed the parts I cut off due to the extream length. I took it down a month or two ago because I felt bad leaving a story up I might never finish, promising not to upload another story until it was completely finished. Yet, I still consider it my best work, edited and reedited at least twenty times...and so naturally I felt a tad bit conflicted about this choice. But then came the solution.**

**Last week was my Birthday, and I had a one-shot all ready to upload...but then I reread it, and needless to say hated it. Currently in the process of revision, this is all I have to upload, and so I noticed I could use this as a stand alone oneshot. One day I might be able to finish this story, but for now I'll leave it as it is and be glad I had something to put up. Sigh, life just loves throwing those curveballs.**

**So, after that explanation to the people who knew I've had this up before, for any new people who may stumble across this, in a courtly greeting...hi. *waves* (If you have seen that show, and remember that line, I respect you immensely) **

**If you feel like checking out any of my other works, feel free to click my name up top and browse to your hearts content. Oh, and feedback is always a good late birthday present, so feel free to do that as well. Well, hope you enjoyed, now I have some anime to watch, books to read, and people to drive insane...so, I bid you all a good day and a fond farethewell. Until next time we meet!**

**(And to change things up a bit, the disclaimer shall go at the bottom. I do not own any characters you see here, I am not J.K. Rowling, and I now sadly state that I do not own this highly successful franchise.)**


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